Jim Kelley

Jim Kelley writes regularly on the NHL for Sportsnet.ca and can be heard on Primetime Sports on the FAN590.

Remember Brett Hull's Stanley Cup-winning goal back in 1999?

Hey all you conspiracy nuts -- I mean theorists -- out there, Jim Kelley here, and I'm telling you not to give up.

You see I've seen this before. Remember Brett Hull's Stanley Cup-winning goal back in 1999? I was there and saw that referees Terry Gregson and Bill McCreary were on the ice when that controversial goal was scored. Both officials played dumb like everything was good and not subject to any review and guess who's the NHL Director of Officiating now? Well it's Gregson and who did Gregson recently talk out of retirement for another year of wearing the stripes? Well, it was his old partner, McCreary.

And didn't we see McCreary at the scorer's table that day picking up a telephone and then, seemingly without talking to anyone, put it back down and skate off the ice? Same thing we saw this week in Vancouver when the ref put his hand up to make a call and then took it down. Right after that, a goal was scored and the review, well, come on we all know what was going on there, right?

Now you may say "so what" to the Buffalo connection, but hit the internet baby and dig a little deeper. Remember when then-Sabres coach Jim Schoenfeld threw a water bottle at Gregson in Quebec City's old Le Colisée? I do, I was there and I'm telling you Gregson never forgot it, (especially after Schoenfeld said his only regret was that "it wasn't a brick.").

Don't tell me Gregson didn't finally get the Sabres back. And, for the record, wasn't it McCreary who got in the way of a clearing pass that "pushed" the puck to Sidney Crosby and set him free to score the game- and Olympic gold medal-winning goal that lifted Canada over the United States? He does that and what does Gregson do? Well, he adds another year onto McCreary's contract. Doesn't that tell you something?

And I've got more. We all know that with the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators on the ropes in the playoffs it just makes sense to try and get the Canucks out as well.

Why? Well it's so that the networks have no Canadian-based teams to waste money on and so they have more focus on the game in the U.S. What bigger market is there out West than the Los Angles market, the team the Canucks just happen to be playing?

Coincidence? Yeah right. Just like it was a "coincidence" that the league allowed the Calgary Flames to play with a salary-cap shortened bench last season in the hopes that the Flames would not only get in the playoffs but then get rid of those whining Canucks along the way.

You see there's a Vancouver-Buffalo theme here. They both came into the NHL 40 years ago and neither has ever won the Cup because the markets are too small for television. I mean isn't that why Kerry Fraser refused to review the goal that started the Sabres was the beginning of the end in the Eastern Conference final in 1998? True the league admitted the same referee that jobbed the Toronto Maple Leafs so that Gretzky could take the Kings to the finals rather than Doug Gilmour and the Leafs (and we all know why that happened) was wrong, but so what? Too little and too late.

And let's not forget when the refs and the league looked the other way when Philadelphia's John Leclair shot that puck through the outside of the net in the 2000 playoff series with the Sabres. That was reviewed and allowed to stand because, as we all know now, the league hid the tapes. If it weren't for the fact that they came to light via ESPN, they would have gotten away with it. Even with the ESPN tapes, the goal was allowed to stand and the Flyers went on to win the game, 2-1, and, eventually, the series and we all know why. It was because the Sabres had complained too loudly about the Hull goal and, well, they were going to show Lindy Ruff who's in charge. The Sabres coach got his, eh? And then ESPN got "dumped" as the rights holder shortly thereafter. That will teach them a lesson or two about embarrassing the NHL, eh?

I could go on and write about the way the league convinced Mark Messier that if he fell flat on his face while playing for the Canucks, the league would get him to New York, bless him as the ultimate leader and allow him to beat the Canucks in the 1994 Stanley Cup final. And just who's being talked about as a possible replacement as GM of the Rangers? Well, does the name Messier ring a bell?

And come on! What about the Stephane Auger- Alex Burrows whitewash earlier this season? A fine for the Vancouver player and nothing for the ref and now a review, the longest review in the history of video-replay reviews, goes against the Canucks on the word of reviewer Mike Murphy, a former Los Angeles Kings coach?

You're telling me there isn't a pattern here?

OK, time to come clean. I'm telling you there is no pattern here. There is no "conspiracy" to do in the Canucks or the Sabres or any other team or person other than Jim Balsillie. Have there been mistakes over time? Sure, but is there a team in this league who can't make a case for a bad call costing them or a lengthy review going against the norm? I'm going so far as to say that NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is not only right, but he has a right to be indignant about this recent Vancouver flap.

"It was determined it was kicked in," Bettman, speaking with all the venom he could muster, said of the ruling . "When they do video replay, they want to make sure they get it right. It should take as long as it takes them to get it right. I'd rather that than say you've got a minute and 30 seconds and get it wrong.

Bettman was also correct when he defended his hockey operations department. "Let's get something straight," he said. "I have complete confidence in the integrity and professionalism and judgment of my hockey operations department. Period.

"I think this whole tact of innuendo and insinuation is both insulting and pure fantasy."

And it is.

Do I think Fraser made a mistake when he blew that call for a review of a goal that should have counted? Of course I do, but I don't for a moment believe "the fix" was in. Was he possibly intimidated to the point of being paralyzed about making a call on Gretzky's high stick on Gilmour. Yes, I think so, but I also think it wasn't anything more than that and Fraser will take it as a mistake, a mistake he will take it to his grave. It happens.

I also believe that Gregson and McCreary expected a review of the Brett Hull goal and were puzzled and probably dismayed when it never came. Just where was then-Director of Officiating Bryan Lewis -- who also happened to be the video replay judge that night -- when that happened? That's a question that has never adequately been answered even though Lewis was seen heading from the press box to the arena floor almost immediately after Hull scored and the Zamboni doors were opened allowing the Dallas celebration to begin.

And if anyone was to be held accountable for the Leclair through-the-net goal it would likely be the Flyers organization. There were some five networks and 15 cameras covering that game and the clips that would have shown the puck passing through a hole in the net somehow never came up until an ESPN technician discovered it well after play had resumed. The league had no control over that but to its credit it enacted future controls in an attempt to guard against it happening again.

If there is one thing in all of this unholy mess that does ring true, however, it's that be it from arrogance or incompetence, the league apparently either doesn't study history or doesn't learn from it.

In 1999, in full damage control after the Hull debacle, the league acknowledged that prior to the start of the playoffs it had altered the season-long perception of the "foot-in-the-crease" rule in order to better define it. It produced a memo that said the GMs had signed off on the changes and that the memo was designed to "clarify" the issue that had bedeviled them that season. It wasn't a good memo -- in truth there was a point in it that should have disallowed the goal rather than confirm it -- but the bigger error was altering the details without making the changes public.

While the general public had been led to believe that violating crease space, even the air above the crease space, with so much as a skate lace would lead to disallowing an apparent goal, the league had produced other interpretations.

The problem was they didn't tell anyone.

All playoffs long they let the media and especially their broadcast teams cling to "goal disallowed violations" the same way they cling to the "rule" that a high stick that draws blood is an automatic four-minute penalty.

A decade later they've done the same thing.

This time the ruling is in the form of a DVD and the GMs, we are told, signed off on it. Never mind that it attempts to define the indefinable -- what constitutes a legal goal that goes in off a player's skate and what doesn't -- the bigger issue is that the fans weren't aware.

Fans have repeatedly and consistently been told to believe that a puck that goes into the net off a "distinct kicking motion" is not a legal goal, but that a puck that deflects off a skate and goes in is good and should be counted as such.

In taking seven minutes to determine if the Canucks had scored and ruling they had not, there's little doubt that the men in the "War Room" - men whose reputations for "integrity and professionalism and judgment" truly are above reproach-reviewed the points on the DVD. They then made a decision. Chances are that decision was correct given what's on the DVD, but the problem is that the public, the super-passionate Canucks fans and even the media were under the impression that the "distinct kicking motion" would be the true determining factor.

That's the league's fault.

During the lockout, the league promised a lot of things. Lower ticket prices was one of them -- yeah that was true. Complete transparency was another.

They fell well short of that in the Vancouver-Los Angeles ruling.

That's human error and it borders on stupidity. You can't have your fans believing one thing and then turn around and issue an "addendum", not tell them about it, and expect them to trust your judgment and your word. You especially can't do it in the crucible of the playoffs when the stakes are high and the passions, especially the fans' passions are at their peak.

You would think the league, and the commissioner, would have learned that after the Hull goal.

It doesn't rise to the level of a conspiracy, but it does slip to the level of arrogance mixed with the aforementioned stupidity.

That attitude lends fodder to those who want to believe that the "fix" is in.

And for that, the NHL has no one but itself to blame.

Again.